Health & Social Care

Financial Support/Welfare Rights

The Benefits System

At first sight the benefits system can appear to be a confusing maze, consisting of over forty different - and sometimes contradictory - benefits. At second sight, it is a confusing maze.Yet it is possible to gain an overall understanding of the system without having to become a full time benefits expert! In doing so, workers can help their clients in a practical way, by spotting a potential claim or decision which can be challenged!

Means tested benefits

Means tested benefits - also known as “income-related” - have an additional means test on top of any other criteria such as being incapacitated or available for and actively seeking work. This means that the amount of benefit will be affected by any other income and savings that either you, a heterosexual partner or any children might have. Means tested benefits either pay a cash benefit (e.g. Income Support) or they help towards certain specific expenses (e.g. Housing Benefit to pay the rent or Social Fund grants/loans to buy a cooker).

Non-means tested benefits

The other categories and sub-divisions shown in the table apply to non-means tested benefits only.

Contributory benefits

Some non-means tested benefits are contributory - which means entitlement also depends on having paid (or been credited with) enough National Insurance contributions in the appropriate years. Some of these benefits (e.g. Retirement Pension) are affected by contributions over your working life, others by contributions in specific tax years prior to your date of claim. See under each benefit for more details. Other non-means tested benefits (and all means-tested ones) are non-contributory.

Overlapping benefits

Those non-means tested benefits marked with a # in the table – i.e. all the contributory benefits and some of the non-contributory ones - are overlapping. This means that they cannot be paid on top of each other. If you qualify for more than one - e.g. you are widowed, over pension age and looking after a disabled relative - you will only be paid up to the value of whichever benefit is the highest. Your payment book might still include the names of two or more benefits, but one benefit will just top up the value of the highest overlapping benefit. These benefits are also called “earnings replacement” benefits, reflecting the idea that they are meant to give a basic income to replace the lost income from full-time work and that this only needs to be done once.You still retain an “underlying entitlement” to any benefit, which you are not paid because of the overlapping rules. This can help by qualifying you for extra premiums in the calculation of means tested benefits.